Elisabeth von Rantzau

Elisabeth von Rantzau in the habit of the Annunciators

Hedwig Margarethe Elisabeth von Rantzau , mostly simply Elisabeth von Rantzau , religious name Maria Elisabeth (* 1624 , † 1706 in Hildesheim ), is the founder of the monastery Klein Bethlehem der Annunciatinnen in Hildesheim.

Career

Elisabeth was the daughter of Gerhard Rantzau , governor of the Danish king in Holstein from the von Rantzau family , and his second wife Dorothea von Brockdorff . The father died when she was three, the mother when she was six. In 1636, at the age of twelve, she was married to Josias Rantzau (her grandfathers were brothers). He was a soldier and general in various armies of the Thirty Years' War . In the year before the marriage he had entered French service, where he later rose to Marshal of France .

In Paris, Elisabeth von Rantzau encountered Catholicism . She was particularly impressed by the encounter with the founder of the Sisters of Mercy , St. Vincent de Paul . In 1644 she converted to the Catholic Church herself . Her husband followed her a year later.

Josias Rantzau died in Paris in 1650 after changing battle fates. The marriage had remained childless and the Bothkamp estate was lost to mismanagement.

Elisabeth joined the Annunciators in Paris in 1652. In the local monastery she took her religious vows and a little later became prioress . For over five decades she was distinguished in religious life by wisdom, activity and piety.

Little Bethlehem

Around 1660, she was interested in founding a monastery in northern Germany. In Hildesheim , which was the prince-bishop's residence town, this plan seemed to be most feasible. However , he met resistance from the Lutheran city ​​council and the majority of the population. Practical and financial issues also had to be resolved. The convent was built in 1666 , but it was not until 1668 that a house on the west side of today's Klosterstrasse in the immediate vicinity of the Michaeliskirche could be acquired from the property of the Michaeliskloster . The sisters called it Little Bethlehem ; they understood themselves and those who were taken in as members of the household of the baby Jesus .

Klein Bethlehem on Klosterstrasse in Hildesheim around 1900

The monastery was sponsored by Niels Stensen and financially supported by Duke Johann Friedrich and other converts from the north German nobility, including Elisabeth's cousin Christoph von Rantzau . Noble converts who had lost family support due to their change of religion were accepted here.

A hundred years after Elisabeth von Rantzau's death, the monastery was secularized . In the middle of the 19th century, the Sisters of Mercy acquired the building and set up a children's home here, which continued to be called Klein Bethlehem . When Hildesheim was destroyed on March 22, 1945, the entire complex was destroyed and later not rebuilt.

The Elisabeth von Rantzau School in Hildesheim is named after Elisabeth von Rantzau .

literature

• Hans-Georg Aschoff : Return to Rome - Conversions in the Welfenhaus. In: The Diocese of Hildesheim in the past and present. 70th year, Hildesheim 2002, p. 193.
• Gisela Nowak: Maria Elisabeth von Rantzau. Hildesheim 1984.